Which conference lineup interests you more? (Strings '11 or mixed-QG 11)

[marcus]

QG 11 is a mixed conference (String, SUGRA, Loop, Noncommutative, AsymSafe, Causal...).
It starts next week in Zurich. A mere three days after QG 11 is over, Strings 2011 will start in Uppsala. So the two conferences are back-to-back, suggesting comparison.

Which of the two turns out more interesting to researchers will probably have an influence on future events. Which do you think will be more productive---stimulate more new research ideas, reveal more surprises to the participants, spark collaboration etc...?

Here are lists of the talks--the titles posted so far. Compare and see what you think.

Here is QG 11 lineup. They still have some unfilled timeslots for more talks TBA, but this is the main course of invited talks. To show the mix I colorcoded CDT talks (causal dynamical triangulations) and asymptotic safety QG talks, and those I considered especially stringy.

QG 11 TALKS
Ambjorn: CDT, a quantum theory of geometry
Arnlind: Poisson Algebraic Geometry and Matrix Regularizations
Ashtekar: Quantum Cosmology and the Very Early Universe
Bachas: The problem of localization of gravity
Baez: Higher gauge theory, division algebras and superstrings
Barrett: State sum models and the spectral action
Beisert: Symmetries and Integrability for Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theory
Blau: String Theory as a Theory of Quantum Gravity: a Status Report
Bossard: Toward the consistency of N=8 supergravity as a quantum field theory
Chamseddine: The Spectral Action
Compere: The translation anomaly of asymptotically flat spacetimes
Craps: Cosmological singularities in string theory
de Goursac: Renormalizability of noncommutative quantum field theories
Dixon: Ultraviolet behavior of quantum (super)gravity through four loops
Elvang: Symmetry constraints on the UV behavior of N=8 supergravity
Giulini: Very basic issues concerning quantum mechanics and gravitation
Hoppe: Fundamental Structures of M-brane Theory
Jacobson: How general is the generalized second law?
Lechner: Covariant and local deformations of quantum field theories
Lewandowski: Canonical LQG: soluble models and other advances
Litim: Renormalisation group and the Planck scale
Loll: Nonperturbative highlights on quantum gravity from CDT
Longo: Boundary Quantum Field Theory and Conformal Field Theory
Mukhanov: Massive Gravity
Nicolai: Infinite-dimensional symmetries and the Wheeler-DeWitt equation
Reiterer: A class of gauges for the Einstein equations
Reuter: Einstein-Cartan Theory and Asymptotic Safety
Rovelli: Loop quantum gravity: the covariant dynamics
Speziale: Spin networks as twisted geometries
Steinacker: Matrix models, noncommutative gauge theory and emergent geometry
Wulkenhaar: Ward identities in matrix models arising from noncommutative geometry

http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:start
============================
Here is the corresponding list of talk titles for Strings '11. There are 16 more titles yet to be posted, which I don't expect will change the general character of the programme.

STRINGS 2011 TALKS
Niklas Beisert (AEI Potsdam) "Counterterms and E7 Symmetry in N=8 Supergravity"
Henriette Elvang (University of Michigan) review talk "Recent progress on amplitudes"
Rajesh Gopakumar (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad) "Holographic Minimal Models"
David Gross (KITP, Santa Barbara) opening talk
Jeff Harvey (University of Chicago) summary talk
Thomas Klose (Uppsala University) "Recent Results for Holographic Three-Point Functions"
Andrei Linde (Stanford University) "Chaotic inflation in supergravity"
Marcos Mariño (University of Geneva) "Exact results and stringy effects in ABJM theory"
Liam McAllister (Cornell University) review talk "String cosmology"
Juan Maldacena (IAS, Princeton) "Comments on de Sitter perturbation theory"
Greg Moore (Rutgers University) review talk "The Recent Role of (2,0) Theories in Physical Mathematics"
Yaron Oz (Tel Aviv University) "Holography and Hydrodynamics"
Subir Sachdev (Harvard University) review talk "Quantum matter and gauge-gravity duality: quantum criticality, superconductivity, and Fermi surfaces"
Nathan Seiberg (IAS, Princeton) review talk "Recent advances in SUSY"
Ashoke Sen (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad) "What can black holes tell us about microstates?"
Tadashi Takayanagi (IPMU, the University of Tokyo) "Holographic Entanglement Entropy and its New Developments"
Dimitrios Tsimpis (Université de Lyon) "Uses of 3d toric varieties"
Frank Wilczek (MIT) "Three Ways Beyond the Standard Model"
Edward Witten (IAS, Princeton) "Chern-Simons theory from four dimensions"
Fabio Zwirner (University of Padua) review talk "LHC results and prospects from a theorist's viewpoint"

Here is the link:
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html

 

[marcus]

I'd be interested to hear any reasons to explain a contrary view, but off-hand I'd say that QG 11 is obviously a far more interesting conference. The key factor is that it is mixed, so we should look more carefully at the makeup.
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
I think at this point, with a declining enthusiasm for string and the focus of string researchers tending to spread out into less specifically string-unification areas---QG in particular, that if you are organizing a conference you can get more interesting people to talk about more interesting stuff if you make it mixed.

It is just how it is IMHO. Many of the smart people are interested in what is going on in neighboring lines of research, not just string. So we are probably going to see more conferences like QG 11---that is more heterogeneity---in the future.

Of course it would be delightful to hear an argument to the contrary, if anybody can think one.

I'll try to sketch how the mix divides up later. For starters it looks like 8 string and 4 loop out of about 32. I see two "spectral action", two "causal", two "asymsafe". The interesting categories I have some difficulty counting are the Sugra and the Noncommutative Field Theory. Anybody else wants to report how the pie is sliced, that would be fine!

 

[john baez]

Well, I'm voting with my feet and going to the Quantum Theory and Gravitation conference in Zurich. Is it really called "QG 11"? I didn't think it was part of a series.

 

[marcus]

Well, I'm voting with my feet and going to the Quantum Theory and Gravitation conference in Zurich. Is it really called "QG 11"? I didn't think it was part of a series.

I don't think it is, but it is nevertheless abbreviated QG11 in the URL. The abbreviation is recognized by Google, so it is useful. One can google "QG11 Zurich" and get the conference website. That is about all that can be said in the abbreviation's favor.

Three names have been added to the Zurich speaker's list since I last posted a couple of days ago.
Laurent Freidel, Jeff Morton, Derek Wise

Freidel: The principle of relative locality
Morton: Extended Field Theories and Higher Gauge Theories
Wise: TBA

The title of Erik Verlinde's talk has been added to the Uppsala list:

Erik Verlinde (University of Amsterdam) "The Hidden Phase Space of Our Universe"
==================

Six people have responded so far! Thanks to MTd2, John Baez, Schreiber, Negru, and Erkokite for helping to get the poll off to a good start.

 

[marcus]

The title of Gary Shiu's talk has been added to the Uppsala list:

Gary Shiu (University of Wisconsin at Madison) "Towards Simple de Sitter Vacua"

Stefan Hollands' talk has been added to the Zurich programme:

Hollands: Quantum field theory correlators on manifolds at very large and very short distances

Eventually I'll recopy both lineups. Thanks to the seven people who voted so far in the poll! I encourage you to comment and, in particular, to give any special reasons you see for interest in either conference.

http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html

====================

Incidental note about Stefan Hollands, who may be among those less well known to many of us:
Hollands gave one of the five "core lecture series" at this year's Zakopane QG school. He is an expert in the area of QFT on curved spacetimes.
http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~kostecki/school3/
==quote==
Stefan Hollands - Exact QFT in curved backgrounds (lecture notes: 1, 2, 3, 4)
QFT on curved backgrounds is the formulation of QFT which does not require the symmetries of Minkowski or (Anti) de Sitter space times. From the mathematical point of view this is the highest development of QFT. It is also an important intermediate step between the standard QFT and quantum gravity. As an approximation to quantum gravity it supplies some of the most potent intuitions of the field (holography, black hole entropy). The lecture will cover the recent results and successes in the exact construction of these quantum field theories.
==endquote==

 

[unusualname]

Both these conferences look very interesting.

 

[marcus]

Both these conferences look very interesting.

I'm curious to know what specifics? If you would care to mention some talks that particularly drew your attention.

 

[unusualname]

I'm curious to know what specifics? If you would care to mention some talks that particularly drew your attention.

Well, Strings 2011 has more nobel prize/fields medal winners for a start

But generally, the titles seem quite ambitious (not sure whether the talks will live up to that), you have big names like Wilzcek, Verlinde and Linde with very tasty titled talks. Some of the other "stars" like Witten and Maldacena have less inspiring titles, but you never know.

So Strings 2011 could be exciting stuff, even if it's basically "strings".

The QG11 conference is of course more diverse, and there are several tantalising subject titles, and some "big names" too, so it will almost certainly also be very "interesting".

(Joan Baez clearly voted for Zurich since he's invited to give a talk! )

 

[marcus]

(Joan Baez clearly voted for Zurich since he's invited to give a talk! )

Take you down to the harbor now--
Most of the sour grapes are gone from the bough.
Ghosts of Johanna will visit you there,
and winds of the old days will blow...through your hair.

 

[unusualname]

Take you down to the harbor now--
Most of the sour grapes are gone from the bough.
Ghosts of Johanna will visit you there,
and winds of the old days will blow...through your hair.

haha, easy slip to make, sorry, I of course mean John (she's his cousin I think?)

 

[marcus]

haha, easy slip to make, sorry, I of course mean John (she's his cousin I think?)

I think that's right. I recall reading that John's and Joan's fathers were brothers. Her father was a physicist.
I'm glad to have your comment about what gives interest to the Strings 2011 conference. You mentioned Wilczek and Verlinde's talks. This fits in with what I was noticing about the value of having a MIX.

My guess is what you point to as potentially spicing up the conference will in part turn out to be NON-STRING content. Verlinde entropic gravity is essentially an alternative approach---that doesn't mean you can't draw connections (I think you are well aware that in math there's apt to be some level at which two ways to analyze something are analogous, or where tools can be taken over and used in another context.)

Wilczek is going to talk about THREE ways to go beyond the Standard Model. My guess is that at least two of these will not be especially stringy. His recent book Lightness of Being was not. But that's just a guess. Eventually we'll find out.

 

[marcus]

The Uppsala list of talks was updated today. Now we have a nearly complete coverage of the program. I count only 5 talks still to be announced (TBA): Gaiotto, Greene, Johansson, Shatashvili, Volovich.

List of confirmed speakers

Niklas Beisert (AEI Potsdam) "Counterterms and E7 Symmetry in N=8 Supergravity"
Sergio Cecotti (SISSA) "N=2 gauge theories and algebras"
Miranda Cheng (Harvard) "K3 String Theory, the Largest Mathieu Group, and Holographic Moonshine"
Henriette Elvang (University of Michigan) review talk "Recent progress on amplitudes"
Davide Gaiotto (IAS, Princeton) TBA
Rajesh Gopakumar (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad) "Holographic Minimal Models"
Mariana Graña (Saclay) "Constructing metastable vacua in Klebanov-Strassler"
Michael Green (Cambridge University) "Multiloop systematics in pure spinor field theory"
Brian Greene (Columbia University) TBA
David Gross (KITP, Santa Barbara) opening talk
Sergei Gukov (Caltech) "A-polynomial, B-model, and S-duality"
Jeff Harvey (University of Chicago) summary talk
Chris Hull (Imperial College) "Double Field Theory and Duality"
Henrik Johansson (Saclay) TBA
Thomas Klose (Uppsala University) "Recent Results for Holographic Three-Point Functions"
Andrei Linde (Stanford University) "Chaotic inflation in supergravity"
Juan Maldacena (IAS, Princeton) "Comments on de Sitter perturbation theory"
Marcos Mariño (University of Geneva) "Exact results and stringy effects in ABJM theory"
Liam McAllister (Cornell University) review talk "String cosmology"
Shiraz Minwalla (Tata Institute, Mumbai) "A Theory of Dissipative Superfluid Hydrodynamics"
Greg Moore (Rutgers University) review talk "The Recent Role of (2,0) Theories in Physical Mathematics"
Alexei Morozov (ITEP, Moscow) "Challenges of beta-deformation"
Yaron Oz (Tel Aviv University) "Holography and Hydrodynamics"
Vasily Pestun (Harvard) "Exact Results for 't Hooft Loops in Gauge Theories on S^4"
Subir Sachdev (Harvard University) review talk "Quantum matter and gauge-gravity duality: quantum criticality, superconductivity, and Fermi surfaces"
Nathan Seiberg (IAS, Princeton) review talk "Recent advances in SUSY"
Ashoke Sen (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad) "What can black holes tell us about microstates?"
Samson Shatashvili (Trinity College, Dublin and IHES) TBA
Gary Shiu (University of Wisconsin at Madison) "Towards Simple de Sitter Vacua"
Tadashi Takayanagi (IPMU, the University of Tokyo) "Holographic Entanglement Entropy and its New Developments"
Dimitrios Tsimpis (Université de Lyon) "Uses of 3d toric varieties"
Erik Verlinde (University of Amsterdam) "The Hidden Phase Space of Our Universe"
Anastasia Volovich (Brown University) TBA
Frank Wilczek (MIT) "Three Ways Beyond the Standard Model"
Edward Witten (IAS, Princeton) "Chern-Simons theory from four dimensions"
Fabio Zwirner (University of Padua) review talk "LHC results and prospects from a theorist's viewpoint"

EDIT: I highlighted the Yaron Oz talk after seeing Atyy's post #13.
Thanks for pointing it out. Likewise to Unusualname--it's helpful to know what about the programme catches others' attention. I'll look up Yaron Oz's papers. I seem to remember him from years back on Sci.Physics.Research when Baez was moderating.

 

[atyy]

Take you down to the harbor now--
Most of the sour grapes are gone from the bough.
Ghosts of Johanna will visit you there,
and winds of the old days will blow...through your hair.

Wow, that's beautiful.

BTW, what do you think of Yaron Oz talking at strings? His coauthors include http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.3638" .

I think http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2451" both also work with Jacobson's stuff at the back of their minds.

 

[marcus]

Slide PDFs are available for some of the Zurich lectures:

Rovelli:
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichrovelli.pdf

Lewandowski:
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:lqgrecentadvanceszurich.pdf

Jacobson:
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:howgeneral-zurich.pdf

Hollands:
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurich.hollands.pdf

Blau:
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichblau.pdf

Baez:
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:baez.susy.pdf

Links to the two programmes:

http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011

 

[marcus]

Enough new titles have been added to the Zurich QG11 list that I should update. Maybe I'll try some different colorcoded categories to show the mix from a different viewpoint.
Causal Dynamical Triangulations(CDT)
Spectral Action (Connes Noncommutative Geometry)
LQG (incl. Group Field Theory)
Asymptotic Safety
Foundations
String
======
Ambjorn: CDT, a quantum theory of geometry
Arnlind: Poisson Algebraic Geometry and Matrix Regularizations
Ashtekar: Quantum Cosmology and the Very Early Universe
Bachas: The problem of localization of gravity
Baez: Higher gauge theory, division algebras and superstrings
Barrett: State sum models and the spectral action
Beisert: Symmetries and Integrability for Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theory
Blau: String Theory as a Theory of Quantum Gravity: a Status Report
Bossard: Toward the consistency of N=8 supergravity as a quantum field theory
Chamseddine: The Spectral Action
Compere: The translation anomaly of asymptotically flat spacetimes
Craps: Cosmological singularities in string theory
de Goursac: Renormalizability of noncommutative quantum field theories
Dixon: Ultraviolet behavior of quantum (super)gravity through four loops
Elvang: Symmetry constraints on the UV behavior of N=8 supergravity
Freidel: The principle of relative locality
Giulini: Very basic issues concerning quantum mechanics and gravitation
Hollands: Quantum field theory correlators on manifolds at very large and very short distances
Hoppe: Fundamental Structures of M-brane Theory
Jacobson: How general is the generalized second law?
Lechner: Covariant and local deformations of quantum field theories
Lewandowski: Canonical LQG: soluble models and other advances
Litim: Renormalisation group and the Planck scale
Loll: Nonperturbative highlights on quantum gravity from CDT
Longo: Boundary Quantum Field Theory and Conformal Field Theory
Morton: Extended Field Theories and Higher Gauge Theories
Mukhanov: Massive Gravity
Nicolai: Infinite-dimensional symmetries and the Wheeler-DeWitt equation
Oriti: Group field theory: a brief survey of recent developments
Reiterer: A class of gauges for the Einstein equations
Reuter: Einstein-Cartan Theory and Asymptotic Safety
Rovelli: Loop quantum gravity: the covariant dynamics
Shaposhnikov: Scale-invariant alternatives to general relativity
Speziale: Spin networks as twisted geometries
Steinacker: Matrix models, noncommutative gauge theory and emergent geometry
Wulkenhaar: Ward identities in matrix models arising from noncommutative geometry

I count about 36 talks. Different parts of the mix are highlighted with different colors (e.g. string talks colored blue) to give an impression of the variety. The test will be how well these different communities listen to each other, share ideas, and eventually support collaboration. I have no idea how it is apt to work out, but I'm hopeful. I'm not sure what Nicolai's talk is going to be about so it is just a guess to classify it "foundations"--a potentially important topic headlined on the front page by the organizers.
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme

 

[marcus]

Slide PDFs available so far from the Zurich QG11 conference:

Speziale: Spin networks as twisted geometries
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:speziale.pdf
Rovelli: Loop quantum gravity: the covariant dynamics
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichrovelli.pdf
Lewandowski: Canonical LQG: soluble models and other advances
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:lqgrecentadvanceszurich.pdf
Jacobson: How general is the generalized second law?
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:howgeneral-zurich.pdf
Hollands: Quantum field theory correlators on manifolds at very large and very short distances
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurich.hollands.pdf
Compere: The translation anomaly of asymptotically flat spacetimes
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:compere.pdf
Blau: String Theory as a Theory of Quantum Gravity: a Status Report
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichblau.pdf
Beisert: Symmetries and Integrability for Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theory
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:beisert.pdf
Baez: Higher gauge theory, division algebras and superstrings
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:baez.susy.pdf
Ashtekar: Quantum Cosmology and the Very Early Universe
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ashtekar.pdf
Ambjorn: CDT, a quantum theory of geometry
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ambjorn.pdf

Links to the QG11 and Strings 2011 programmes:

http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011

I mentioned that some of the talks at QG11 are what I would classify as about foundations. Or, in the language of the QG11 website front page general theory.
Where they list the half-dozen topics the conference is to focus on, the first topic listed is:

"General quantum theory, relativistic quantum theory, emergence of space(-time)"

So, in trying to understand the MIX of the QG11 conference (Official name: "Quantum Theory and Gravitation") I tried to identify some talks that could be considered of that basic general foundations type---rather than related to a specific approach.

I came up with these four possible candidates for that category:

Nicolai: Infinite-dimensional symmetries and the Wheeler-DeWitt equation
Jacobson: How general is the generalized second law?
Giulini: Very basic issues concerning quantum mechanics and gravitation
Freidel: The principle of relative locality

I'm not sure about the classification, and, to repeat, I have no good guess as to the content of Nicolai's talk. Only that it doesn't seem to fit in with established approaches---like string (his previous research has been mainly string.)

Hopefully Nicolai will be one of those who posts his slides PDF, and so we will eventually see what the talk is about.)
===================

Two more titles added to the Uppsala programme,
Henrik Johansson (Saclay) "Lie Algebra Structures in Yang-Mills and Gravity Amplitudes"
Anastasia Volovich (Brown University) "Symblifying Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Yang- Mills",
now only three TBAs remain (Gaiotto, Greene, Shatashvili).

 

[marcus]

More slide PDFs are available from the Zurich QG11 conference. Fifteen so far:

Speziale: Spin networks as twisted geometries
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:speziale.pdf
Rovelli: Loop quantum gravity: the covariant dynamics
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichrovelli.pdf
Oriti: Group field theory: a brief survey of recent developments
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:oriti.pdf
Lewandowski: Canonical LQG: soluble models and other advances
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:lqgrecentadvanceszurich.pdf
Jacobson: How general is the generalized second law?
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:howgeneral-zurich.pdf
Hollands: Quantum field theory correlators on manifolds at very large and very short distances
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurich.hollands.pdf
Giulini: Very basic issues concerning quantum mechanics and gravitation
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:giulini_qg2011.pdf
de Goursac: Renormalizability of noncommutative quantum field theories
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:goursac-zurich2011.pdf
Compere: The translation anomaly of asymptotically flat spacetimes
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:compere.pdf
Blau: String Theory as a Theory of Quantum Gravity: a Status Report
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichblau.pdf
Beisert: Symmetries and Integrability for Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theory
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:beisert.pdf
Bachas: The problem of localization of gravity
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:bachas.pdf
Baez: Higher gauge theory, division algebras and superstrings
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:baez.susy.pdf
Ashtekar: Quantum Cosmology and the Very Early Universe
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ashtekar.pdf
Ambjorn: CDT, a quantum theory of geometry
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ambjorn.pdf http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011 In the Uppsala programme, all but one title has now been listed. Here are the additions:
Davide Gaiotto (IAS, Princeton) "Field theories labeled by three-manifolds"
Henrik Johansson (Saclay) "Lie Algebra Structures in Yang-Mills and Gravity Amplitudes"
Samson Shatashvili (Trinity College, Dublin and IHES) "Integrability in Quantum Theory, and Applications"
Anastasia Volovich (Brown University) "Symblifying Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Yang-Mills"

Brian Greene's conference talk is the only one still TBA.
==========================

Norbert Bodendorfer has been added to the Zurich QG11 program! He is a collaborator of Thomas Thiemann at Erlangen:
Bodendorfer: Towards Loop Quantum Supergravity

He will share an hour timeslot next week with Derek Wise, one of John Baez PhD students who has been applying higher gauge theory, 2-groups, Cartan geometry.

Thiemann Thurn and Bodendorfer have recently posted a paper where they do LQG Supergravity, actually a whole series of 8 papers by those three just in the past 2 months. So NB will presumably report on that. Should be interesting. Here are the 8 papers:
http://arxiv.org/find/grp_physics/1/au:+Bodendorfer_N/0/1/0/all/0/1

 

[marcus]

Since I last listed the lineup of talks at the Uppsala Strings 2011 conference, five titles which were TBA have been posted. The list is now complete, showing all 36 invited speakers' talks:

Niklas Beisert (AEI Potsdam) "Counterterms and E7 Symmetry in N=8 Supergravity"
Sergio Cecotti (SISSA) "N=2 gauge theories and algebras"
Miranda Cheng (Harvard) "K3 String Theory, the Largest Mathieu Group, and Holographic Moonshine"
Henriette Elvang (University of Michigan) review talk "Recent progress on amplitudes"
Davide Gaiotto (IAS, Princeton) "Field theories labeled by three-manifolds"
Rajesh Gopakumar (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad) "Holographic Minimal Models"
Mariana Graña (Saclay) "Constructing metastable vacua in Klebanov-Strassler"
Michael Green (Cambridge University) "Multiloop systematics in pure spinor field theory"
Brian Greene (Columbia University) "Warped tunneling"
David Gross (KITP, Santa Barbara) opening talk
Sergei Gukov (Caltech) "A-polynomial, B-model, and S-duality"
Jeff Harvey (University of Chicago) summary talk
Chris Hull (Imperial College) "Double Field Theory and Duality"
Henrik Johansson (Saclay) "Lie Algebra Structures in Yang-Mills and Gravity Amplitudes"
Thomas Klose (Uppsala University) "Recent Results for Holographic Three-Point Functions"
Andrei Linde (Stanford University) "Chaotic inflation in supergravity"
Juan Maldacena (IAS, Princeton) "Comments on de Sitter perturbation theory"
Marcos Mariño (University of Geneva) "Exact results and stringy effects in ABJM theory"
Liam McAllister (Cornell University) review talk "String cosmology"
Shiraz Minwalla (Tata Institute, Mumbai) "A Theory of Dissipative Superfluid Hydrodynamics"
Greg Moore (Rutgers University) review talk "The Recent Role of (2,0) Theories in Physical Mathematics"
Alexei Morozov (ITEP, Moscow) "Challenges of beta-deformation"
Yaron Oz (Tel Aviv University) "Holography and Hydrodynamics"
Vasily Pestun (Harvard) "Exact Results for 't Hooft Loops in Gauge Theories on S^4"
Subir Sachdev (Harvard University) review talk "Quantum matter and gauge-gravity duality: quantum criticality, superconductivity, and Fermi surfaces"
Nathan Seiberg (IAS, Princeton) review talk "Recent advances in SUSY"
Ashoke Sen (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad) "What can black holes tell us about microstates?"
Samson Shatashvili (Trinity College, Dublin and IHES) "Integrability in Quantum Theory, and Applications"
Gary Shiu (University of Wisconsin at Madison) "Towards Simple de Sitter Vacua"
Tadashi Takayanagi (IPMU, the University of Tokyo) "Holographic Entanglement Entropy and its New Developments"
Dimitrios Tsimpis (Université de Lyon) "Uses of 3d toric varieties"
Erik Verlinde (University of Amsterdam) "The Hidden Phase Space of Our Universe"
Anastasia Volovich (Brown University) "Symblifying Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Yang- Mills"
Frank Wilczek (MIT) "Three Ways Beyond the Standard Model"
Edward Witten (IAS, Princeton) "Chern-Simons theory from four dimensions"
Fabio Zwirner (University of Padua) review talk "LHC results and prospects from a theorist's viewpoint"

The conference starts in just exactly one week, on 27 June. So far 257 people have registered to participate. If anyone has comment or analysis of the programme, or remarks about individual talks, it would be very interesting to hear that!

Seventeen slides PDFs are now available for the Zurich mixed-QG conference. Two more since I listed them in the preceding post. The two slide-sets that have been added are those of Jeff Morton (Lisbon IST) and Joakim Arnlind (Potsdam AEI):
Arnlind: Poisson Algebraic Geometry and Matrix Regularizations
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:arnlind.pdf
Morton: Extended Field Theories and Higher Gauge Theories
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:morton.pdf http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011

 

[marcus]

We now have a complete list of the Zurich QG conference talks---except for one! Derek Wise's talk is still TBA. It is scheduled for Thursday and presumably will be about 2-groups and Cartan connections. He is a Baez PhD now with Thiemann's group at Erlangen

It's worth mentioning that the Potsdam Albert Einstein Institute has made a strong showing among the speakers at the Zurich conference. Arnlind Beisert Nicolai Oriti. Except for the Zurich locals, four is a lot from anyone place given that the conference (now in its second week) brought people from all over. I didn't notice that many speakers from any other one institution.

The Zurich QG11 programme has 38 talks. I will give the updated list continuing with the earlier colorcoding to show the various topics and QG approaches. I didn't use enough different colors to match how diverse it is. Among the talks not classified by color there Matrix/Noncommuntative Field theory, Higher Gauge theory à la Baez, and straight Supergravity (4 and 8) à la Lance Dixon. Some of my guesses may be wrong, so you have to finish the job of sorting it out Quantum Theory and Gravitation conference ("QG11") programme partially color-coded to show the mix.

Causal Dynamical Triangulations(CDT)
Spectral Action (Connes Noncommutative Geometry)
LQG (incl. Group Field Theory)
Asymptotic Safety
Foundations-general considerations
String
======
Ambjorn: CDT, a quantum theory of geometry
Arnlind: Poisson Algebraic Geometry and Matrix Regularizations
Ashtekar: Quantum Cosmology and the Very Early Universe
Bachas: The problem of localization of gravity
Baez: Higher gauge theory, division algebras and superstrings
Barrett: State sum models and the spectral action
Beisert: Symmetries and Integrability for Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theory
Blau: String Theory as a Theory of Quantum Gravity: a Status Report
Bodendorfer: Towards Loop Quantum Supergravity
Bossard: Toward the consistency of N=8 supergravity as a quantum field theory
Chamseddine: The Spectral Action
Compere: The translation anomaly of asymptotically flat spacetimes
Craps: Cosmological singularities in string theory
de Goursac: Renormalizability of noncommutative quantum field theories
Dixon: Ultraviolet behavior of quantum (super)gravity through four loops
Elvang: Symmetry constraints on the UV behavior of N=8 supergravity
Freidel: The principle of relative locality
Giulini: Very basic issues concerning quantum mechanics and gravitation
Hollands: Quantum field theory correlators on manifolds at very large and very short distances
Hoppe: Fundamental Structures of M-brane Theory
Jacobson: How general is the generalized second law?
Lechner: Covariant and local deformations of quantum field theories
Lewandowski: Canonical LQG: soluble models and other advances
Litim: Renormalisation group and the Planck scale
Loll: Nonperturbative highlights on quantum gravity from CDT
Longo: Boundary Quantum Field Theory and Conformal Field Theory
Morton: Extended Field Theories and Higher Gauge Theories
Mukhanov: Massive Gravity
Nicolai: Infinite-dimensional symmetries and the Wheeler-DeWitt equation
Oriti: Group field theory: a brief survey of recent developments
Reiterer: A class of gauges for the Einstein equations
Reuter: Einstein-Cartan Theory and Asymptotic Safety
Rovelli: Loop quantum gravity: the covariant dynamics
Shaposhnikov: Scale-invariant alternatives to general relativity
Speziale: Spin networks as twisted geometries
Steinacker: Matrix models, noncommutative gauge theory and emergent geometry
Wise: TBA
Wulkenhaar: Ward identities in matrix models arising from noncommutative geometry

http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme

I am still hoping to see the slides PDF posted online for two talks that were given today 20 June:
Dixon: Ultraviolet behavior of quantum (super)gravity through four loops
Hoppe: Fundamental Structures of M-brane Theory

 

[Fra]

When is the talks made public? Are they put up on some website after the conference?

Just skimming titles, Jacobsson, Litim, friedel, bachas and Wilczek sounds like something I'd like to skim when available.

/Fredrik

 

[marcus]

When is the talks made public? Are they put up on some website after the conference?

Just skimming titles, Jacobsson, Litim, friedel, bachas and Wilczek sounds like something I'd like to skim when available.

/Fredrik

Fra, I don't have a complete answer to that. Some slide PDFs are available from the Zurich QG11 conference. Already around 22 PDFs so far. Today they posted slides for two people who have worked on deriving the Standard Model using Noncommutative Geometry: John Barrett and Ali Chamseddine.

Speziale: Spin networks as twisted geometries
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:speziale.pdf
Rovelli: Loop quantum gravity: the covariant dynamics
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichrovelli.pdf
Oriti: Group field theory: a brief survey of recent developments
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:oriti.pdf
Morton: Extended Field Theories and Higher Gauge Theories
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:morton.pdf
Lewandowski: Canonical LQG: soluble models and other advances
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:lqgrecentadvanceszurich.pdf
Lechner: Covariant and local deformations of quantum field theories
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:gandalf_lechner_-_zuerich_2011.pdf
Jacobson: How general is the generalized second law?
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:howgeneral-zurich.pdf
Hollands: Quantum field theory correlators on manifolds at very large and very short distances
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurich.hollands.pdf
Giulini: Very basic issues concerning quantum mechanics and gravitation
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:giulini_qg2011.pdf
Dixon: Ultraviolet behavior of quantum (super)gravity through four loops
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ld.ethz.qg.pdf
de Goursac: Renormalizability of noncommutative quantum field theories
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:goursac-zurich2011.pdf
Compere: The translation anomaly of asymptotically flat spacetimes
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:compere.pdf
Chamseddine: The Spectral Action
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:chamseddine.pdf
Bossard: Toward the consistency of N=8 supergravity as a quantum field theory
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:n_8consistency.pdf
Blau: String Theory as a Theory of Quantum Gravity: a Status Report
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichblau.pdf
Beisert: Symmetries and Integrability for Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theory
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:beisert.pdf
Barrett: State sum models and the spectral action
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:rg-zurich-talk.pdf
Baez: Higher gauge theory, division algebras and superstrings
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:baez.susy.pdf
Bachas: The problem of localization of gravity
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:bachas.pdf
Ashtekar: Quantum Cosmology and the Very Early Universe
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ashtekar.pdf
Arnlind: Poisson Algebraic Geometry and Matrix Regularizations
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:arnlind.pdf
Ambjorn: CDT, a quantum theory of geometry
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ambjorn.pdf http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011 Names added to the PDF list recently included Jeff Morton (Lisbon IST), Joakim Arnlind (Potsdam AEI), Ali Chamseddine (Beirut, Tours), John Barrett (Nottingham)...
Replying in more detail to your question, I don't expect videos of the Zurich talks will be posted. The Uppsala conference starts next week 27 June--we just have to wait and see what they post online.

 

[atyy]

Ambjorn: CDT, a quantum theory of geometry
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ambjorn.pdf

Slide 21 gives amazing proof of the discreteness of spacetime

 

[weburbia]

These are both interesting conferences but to vote on which is the most interesting is nonsensical.

The strings conference is a specialized meeting for string theorists so it is very technical and anyone who is not already an expert in the subject would only find a few talks of interest. The QG conference covers all approaches to quantum gravity including string theory and is designed to bring these people together. Obviously it is less specialized and the talks should be pitched to have a wider appeal. If the QG conference did not win the poll there would be something wrong with the choice of talks.

A more meaningful comparison would have been between the strings conference and another specialized conference, such as loops 2011

 

[marcus]

Slide 21 gives amazing proof of the discreteness of spacetime

A proof by exhaustion---Einstein tries to prove the contrary until he is blue in the face.

These are both interesting conferences but to vote on which is the most interesting is nonsensical.

The strings conference is a specialized meeting for string theorists so it is very technical and anyone who is not already an expert in the subject would only find a few talks of interest. The QG conference covers all approaches to quantum gravity including string theory and is designed to bring these people together. Obviously it is less specialized and the talks should be pitched to have a wider appeal. If the QG conference did not win the poll there would be something wrong with the choice of talks.

A more meaningful comparison would have been between the strings conference and another specialized conference, such as loops 2011

... as if non-experts could make any educated choice... guess how a vote on a conference on quantum spirituality, time travel and free energy would go in comparison!

Interesting/entertaining responses. Thanks. Will reply later.

 

[suprised]

The strings conference is a specialized meeting for string theorists so it is very technical and anyone who is not already an expert in the subject would only find a few talks of interest. The QG conference covers all approaches to quantum gravity including string theory and is designed to bring these people together. Obviously it is less specialized and the talks should be pitched to have a wider appeal. If the QG conference did not win the poll there would be something wrong with the choice of talks.

... as if non-experts could make any educated choice... guess how a vote on a conference on quantum spirituality, time travel and free energy would go in comparison!

 

[atyy]

... as if non-experts could make any educated choice... guess how a vote on a conference on quantum spirituality, time travel and free energy would go in comparison!

String theory does pertain to the soul.

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0603098 (p35)

 

[weburbia]

String theory does pertain to the soul.

This is ruled out by the no ghosts theorem

 

[atyy]

This is ruled out by the no ghosts theorem

If the soul has a body it is not a ghost.

 

[MTd2]

Ghosts are lost souls! ;)

 

[marcus]

Lance Dixon's Zurich slides PDF is posted:
Dixon: Ultraviolet behavior of quantum (super)gravity through four loops
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ld.ethz.qg.pdf

For anyone who doesn't know of him, Dixon is at SLAC and is a worldclass Sugra expert.
He attended Strings 2008 (that was the Strings conference at CERN where Rovelli gave an invited talk about LQG). Dixon was the one the Strings '08 organizers invited to give the Sugra talk.

Someone on this thread suggested that the Zurich talks might be "dumbed down". I don't think so. It is an elite top-level audience: people able to understand several different QG approaches and smart enough to be interested in hearing from several different approaches.
You can see that the talks are not inordinately dumbed down just by looking at the slides PDFs.
Much of the material is not entry-level by any means.

Maybe have a look at Dixon's slides?

BTW I see people like Luis Alvarez-Gaume (CERN theory division) and Roberto Percacci (SISSA) are attending the Zurich talks. (But not Uppsala.) Even though they are not themselves giving presentations.

 

[marcus]

Sample slides (#34 and 35) from Dixon's talk:

Is N=8 SUGRA “only” as good as QED?
• QED is renormalizable, but its perturbation series has zero radius of convergence in a: ~ L! aL
• UV renormalons associated with UV Landau pole
• But for small a it works pretty well:
g_e - 2 agrees with experiment to 10 digits
• Also, tree-level (super)gravity works well for s << M_Pl²
• Many pointlike nonperturbative UV completions for QED: asymptotically free GUTs
• What is/are nonperturbative UV completion(s) for N=8 SUGRA? Is the only possibility superstring theory? Or could some be pointlike too?

Outlook
• Through 4 loops, the 4-graviton scattering amplitude of N=8 supergravity has UV behavior no worse than the corresponding 4-gluon amplitude of N=4 SYM.
• Will the same continue to happen at higher loops? 5 loops will provide a strong test! If so, then N=8 supergravity would be a finite, point-like theory of quantum gravity.
• We need a new way to look at the problem, rather than loop by loop! Is there a deep symmetry responsible?
• N=8 supergravity is still only a “toy model” for quantum gravity – we don‟t see any way to use it to describe the strong and weak interactions.
• Still, could it point the way to other, more realistic, finite point-like theories? (A big challenge, but maybe N=8 gauging --> N<8 can be a first step...)

Slide #36 is kind of funny. You can look for it yourself.

 

[weburbia]

I did not say that the QG conference was dumbed down. I said it was less specialized and the talks should be pitched to have a wider appeal, not the same thing. The QG talks are less specialised but still technical (except for a few such as Blau's talk)

I am amazed that you think this is not the case. It is clear that the strings talks are much more specific and most would be of little interest to someone not already well versed in string theory. You can see talks of a similar level of specialty at the loops conference http://www.iem.csic.es/loops11/

Does nobody else agree?

 

[marcus]

To remind folks of what the poll (and this thread) is about:

I'd be interested to hear any reasons to explain a contrary view, but off-hand I'd say that QG 11 is obviously a far more interesting conference. The key factor is that it is mixed, so we should look more carefully at the makeup.
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
I think at this point, with a declining enthusiasm for string and the focus of string researchers tending to spread out into less specifically string-unification areas---QG in particular, that if you are organizing a conference you can get more interesting people to talk about more interesting stuff if you make it mixed.

It is just how it is IMHO. Many of the smart people are interested in what is going on in neighboring lines of research, not just string. So we are probably going to see more conferences like QG 11---that is more heterogeneity---in the future.

Of course it would be delightful to hear an argument to the contrary, if anybody can think one.

It is not a popularity contest between string and loop. At the Zurich conference there are roughly an equal number of talks of those types (actually more string). But those two approaches account for only about a third of the 36 talks, roughly speaking.
There are maybe a half dozen ways of approaching QG here, and some of the most interesting talks are neither explicitly string or loop.

I think it misses the main point to say it would be more meaningful to run a poll between strings and loops conferences. What is exciting here is the Zurich conference is a mix and it is the first such. We will see how it goes.

I was reading Ted Jacobson's Zurich slides PDF today. On the generalized second law. I thought it was really really interesting. That's the kind of thing that can turn up at a mixed conference.
Congratulations to the organizers for getting talks like that together!

Lance Dixon also appears to have given a great talk, check out his slides PDF.

Here are the 28 Zurich slides PDFs that are available on line so far:

Speziale: Spin networks as twisted geometries
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:speziale.pdf
Shaposhnikov: Scale-invariant alternatives to general relativity
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:shaposhnikov.pdf NEW
Rovelli: Loop quantum gravity: the covariant dynamics
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichrovelli.pdf
Reuter: Einstein-Cartan Theory and Asymptotic Safety
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:reuter.pdf NEW
Reiterer: A class of gauges for the Einstein equations
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:reiterer.pdf NEW
Oriti: Group field theory: a brief survey of recent developments
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:oriti.pdf
Morton: Extended Field Theories and Higher Gauge Theories
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:morton.pdf
Loll: Nonperturbative highlights on quantum gravity from CDT
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:loll.pdf NEW
Lewandowski: Canonical LQG: soluble models and other advances
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:lqgrecentadvanceszurich.pdf
Lechner: Covariant and local deformations of quantum field theories
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:gandalf_lechner_-_zuerich_2011.pdf
Jacobson: How general is the generalized second law?
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:howgeneral-zurich.pdf
Hollands: Quantum field theory correlators on manifolds at very large and very short distances
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurich.hollands.pdf
Giulini: Very basic issues concerning quantum mechanics and gravitation
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:giulini_qg2011.pdf
Freidel: The principle of relative locality
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:freidel.pdf NEW
Elvang: Symmetry constraints on the UV behavior of N=8 supergravity
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:countertermszurich-final.pdf NEW
Dixon: Ultraviolet behavior of quantum (super)gravity through four loops
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ld.ethz.qg.pdf
de Goursac: Renormalizability of noncommutative quantum field theories
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:goursac-zurich2011.pdf
Compere: The translation anomaly of asymptotically flat spacetimes
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:compere.pdf
Chamseddine: The Spectral Action
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:chamseddine.pdf
Bossard: Toward the consistency of N=8 supergravity as a quantum field theory
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:n_8consistency.pdf
Blau: String Theory as a Theory of Quantum Gravity: a Status Report
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichblau.pdf
Beisert: Symmetries and Integrability for Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theory
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:beisert.pdf
Barrett: State sum models and the spectral action
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:rg-zurich-talk.pdf
Baez: Higher gauge theory, division algebras and superstrings
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:baez.susy.pdf
Bachas: The problem of localization of gravity
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:bachas.pdf
Ashtekar: Quantum Cosmology and the Very Early Universe
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ashtekar.pdf
Arnlind: Poisson Algebraic Geometry and Matrix Regularizations
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:arnlind.pdf
Ambjorn: CDT, a quantum theory of geometry
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ambjorn.pdf

Links to the QG11 (Zurich) and Strings 2011 (Uppsala) websites:

http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011

 

[Fra]

I see the voting just as a little bit of fun.

I voted for the mix that would interest me more. It's true that a pure loop might have interested Me less than the mix.

I am not personally appealed to neither pure string nor pure LQG. I see both frameworks as missing key traits.

This is exactly why I think the somewhat more general thinking is more interesting and is likely to lead to the future. Like Jacobssons slides... which seems new deeper founding principles, not present in strings or LQG.

/Fredrik

 

[marcus]

Exactly! This is a new kind of conference (at least at this level on this scale). And there is a reason to get these different research communities together listening to each other and asking questions of each other.

Partly it is simply that the smarter more creative people are going to be drawn in, because they find it more INTERESTING when there is a mix. So you get more interesting presentations from a better grade of contributor (wanting to come, so you don't have to bribe name people with big perks and inducements.) The registration fee at Strings 2011 is around $800*. Go figure.

Partly it is just a good idea to get the different communities in contact sharing ideas.

Lance Dixon, Ted Jacobson, John Baez, Hermann Nicolai, Ali Chamseddine...do you think any of them are even going to attend Strings Uppsala? Heh.

*Strings website says the reg fee is 5000 Krona now or a bit over 5600 SEK at the door, divide by 6.38. You know the exchange rate better than I. Around $800. To me that says it's hard to get the likes of Wilczek and Witten to come and be names at a dull conference. But who knows? maybe stuff is just very expensive in Sweden. :-)

Fra! take a look at Chamseddine's slides PDF. Gives some help understanding of how the Standard Model arises from Noncommutative Geometry.

 

[weburbia]

There were some explanations for the unexpected high cost of strings 11 in comments at http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3689 (weak USD strong SEK, VAT)

It is good that a conference has been organised to try to bring different groups together. it would be good to hear from some participants about whether it worked or if the speakers just flew into give their talks and left.

To really make things happen they need to fund research programs with the specific purpose to look for cross-over, especially between string theory and other QG approaches.

 

[Fra]

*Strings website says the reg fee is 5000 Krona now or a bit over 5600 SEK at the door, divide by 6.38. You know the exchange rate better than I. Around $800. To me that says it's hard to get the likes of Wilczek and Witten to come and be names at a dull conference. But who knows? maybe stuff is just very expensive in Sweden. :-)

I'm not sure what the normal price for such a conference is so I don't have an opinion, but I know the concert hall building where they are holding the seminars is a newly built one and was a controversial project and beeing running at economic loss so far from what I know, it probably isn't the cheapest place of choice.

The "public semniars" with Greene et all are sold out according the website, with no seats left.

/Fredrik

 

[marcus]

I'm not sure what the normal price for such a conference is so I don't have an opinion, but I know the concert hall building where they are holding the seminars is a newly built one and was a controversial project and beeing running at economic loss so far from what I know, it probably isn't the cheapest place of choice.

The "public semniars" with Greene et all are sold out according the website, with no seats left.

/Fredrik

The Zurich conference reg fee is 50 Swiss franc, or 100 CHF including the banquet dinner.
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:payment
50 Swiss is about $60. Order of magnitude less than the $800 fee at Strings 2011 Uppsala.

The link which Weburbia provided suggests that the Uppsala organizers expected "over 500 string theorists" to participate.* As of now 22 June only 261 registered as participants so they may have miscalculated---or maybe last minute reg will bring it up.
In any case if they would just charge admission to the Public Lectures by Stephen Hawking's daughter and Brian Greene and Andrei Linde it could help quite a bit with the bottom line.

http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011-S (link has been fixed)
Live streaming (starts monday 27 June):http://media.medfarm.uu.se/live1
Exchange rates, if anyone cares to they can convert both SEK and CHF to EU for comparison: http://www.oanda.com/currency/converter/

*I checked http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/index.html and confirmed the figure of "over 500 string theorists"
==quote from the Uppsala index page==

Strings is an annual conference gathering more than 500 researchers in string theory from all around the world. Since the 1980s, it has grown to be the largest and most important conference in the field. International experts are invited to review the most recent achievements in string theory and discussions between the participants lead to new developments and insights. Following the tradition of Strings conferences, public lectures will be given presenting aspects of string theory to a general audience...
==endquote==

Martin Reuter's talk is largely based on http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.4280 confirming that the Immirzi parameter has been adopted in AsymSafe QG.
He is going with the Holst action. Much of his talk is about the Immirzi. He has it run. So it is gamma_k instead of plain gamma. Interesting development, puts AsymSafe on much the same track as Loop gravity/cosmology.

==============================
EDIT TO RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING POST #39 by Eiyaz

Eiyaz, someone else who follows string research more closely and with more interest than I would no doubt wish to answer. So I won't write a post #40 that would cover up yours on the index page. Personally I think that the mounting evidence against SUSY seriously detracts from String prospects.
It is indeed an uncomforable elephant that many steadfastly minimize or ignore. But the mathematical techniques can still be used in various contexts. Just not to expect a unique comprehensive stringy theory of nature.
On another topic, AdS/CFT, you might find this interesting:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3793#comment-94039
a string theorist (or someone of that persuasion) who nonetheless strikes me as exceptionally frank and forthcoming.

 

[eiyaz]

Marcus thanks for posting this!

Once again I am confused, how is it that none of the lectures involve the failures of SUSY and how to compensate for that. Am I over emphysizing the importance of SUSY to string theory? My professor at college (undergrad class) had briefly stated that although SUSY is not required for ST, the most promising models suggest it. Therefore EDM uniformity and the lack of detection of SUSY removes the most promising models of ST.

In fact in Blau's paper "String Theory as a Theory of Quantum Gravity: A Status Report" he states:

Supersymmetry: Required for stability of string theory / allows controlled calculations - significance for quantum gravity in general beyond that? (but strongly coupled gauge theories without supersymmetry have regretful tendency to exhibit instabilities; and who knows what happens when one includes full set of standard model fields in other approaches to quantum gravity)

and

"Space is Emergent! When Xa diagonal ) interpretation as ordinary space-time coordinates of N D0-branes. For these “flat directions” of the potential to be preserved by quantum corrections, supersymmetry is essential!"

Yet he does not mention SUSY any further in the article. I have not read all the articles for ST, but so far it seems String theorists are brushing aside the problem of SUSY and ST. Do any of the papers cited talk about the 2011 indiction of SUSY and how it effects ST?

Is this the biggest elephant in the closet for string theorists or is it not as big a deal as I believe?

EDIT TO RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING POST #39 by Eiyaz

Eiyaz, someone else who follows string research more closely and with more interest than I would no doubt wish to answer. So I won't write a post #40 that would cover up yours on the index page. Personally I think that the mounting evidence against SUSY seriously detracts from String prospects.
It is indeed an uncomforable elephant that many steadfastly minimize or ignore. But the mathematical techniques can still be used in various contexts. Just not to expect a unique comprehensive stringy theory of nature.
On another topic, AdS/CFT, you might find this interesting:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3793#comment-94039
a string theorist (or someone of that persuasion) who nonetheless strikes me as exceptionally frank and forthcoming.

Wow! I was looking (actually more like skimming) through the paper titles and not one paper focuses on SUSY which is surprising given how big this year's revelations are. Are scientists ignoring this to protect their life work? It seems like the ostrich sticking its head in the sand.

 

[Fra]

Fra! take a look at Chamseddine's slides PDF. Gives some help understanding of how the Standard Model arises from Noncommutative Geometry.

I'll try to look at that later. As usual my todo list is constantly truncated.

I'm first reflecting a second round on my take on the "generalisation" of GSL that Jacobsson seeks.

The relative entropy is the same as kullback-leibler divergence and this is a natural measure that appears also in the ponderigns I've done when you try to consider "probabilities" for a future sequence of events. But it's as a pure discrete measure, and there it's always finite because there is not continuum underlying it. So in my picture all proper inside view are what Jacobsson calls "nice". No inside observer can measure it infinite.

In particular am I trying to see the connection. I think the general understanding we seek must be completely release from geometric notions. The notion of causal horizon is pretty much the communication channel, throug which all inferencs are made. I like the direction of Jacobssons papers as it goes well in line with inferencial thinking I am into.

There is also a direct connection to hawking radiation, when you consider how an inside observer; communicating through a "horizon" if assumed to NOT accumulate information; needs to discard information at the same rate new arrives. I have long been pretty sure that this "discarded information" is somehow directly related to hawking radiation. And if you see it tis way, it's actually clear that it this "radiation" contains no information RELATIVE to the emitter(this in fact also explains WHY it's emitted! it CAN not be retained/controlled; it's a "random" release), but this conclusion generally does not hold relative to the environment. Thus a resolutio nof the paraodox is then that the BH is "black" from the inside, but not from the outside. Ie. hawking radiation DOES contain information. (it's just that this is observer dependent)

But the missing connection is that the original conjectures take place in SPACETIME. I'm picturing this in terms of abstract inferences. what is missing is how to reconstruct 4D spacetime from pure abstract communication and channels.

For me Jacobsson's paper provides no clues to this personal quest of mine howto connect tothis, but I enjoy to see his focus on what I think are key points.

/Fredrik

 

[marcus]

The title of Derek Wise's talk is now posted. As may have been expected it is about 2-group representations. I'm going to do an update of the Zurich QG programme with some minor reclassification.
I don't have enough clearly distinct colors to show how diverse the Zurich conference mix actually is. Also some of my guesses may be wrong, so you have to finish the job of sorting it out "Foundations and general considerations" turned out to be an important category---basic thinking that could apply across the board---not just to one specific approach. I gave it a brighter color.

Slides PDF are available for (by now) 28 of the 38 talks listed. The links to the slides for those talks are here:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=3369438#post3369438

Quantum Theory and Gravitation conference ("QG11") programme partially color-coded to show the mix.

Foundations-general considerations
String
Spectral Action (Connes Noncommutative Geometry) 2-Groups and Hgher Gauge Theory
Causal Dynamical Triangulations(CDT)
LQG (incl. Group Field Theory)
Asymptotic Safety
Supergravity, Noncommutative QFT, Massive Gravity, and other.
====

Ambjorn: CDT, a quantum theory of geometry
Arnlind: Poisson Algebraic Geometry and Matrix Regularizations
Ashtekar: Quantum Cosmology and the Very Early Universe
Bachas: The problem of localization of gravity
Baez: Higher gauge theory, division algebras and superstrings
Barrett: State sum models and the spectral action
Beisert: Symmetries and Integrability for Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theory
Blau: String Theory as a Theory of Quantum Gravity: a Status Report
Bodendorfer: Towards Loop Quantum Supergravity
Bossard: Toward the consistency of N=8 supergravity as a quantum field theory
Chamseddine: The Spectral Action
Compere: The translation anomaly of asymptotically flat spacetimes
Craps: Cosmological singularities in string theory
de Goursac: Renormalizability of noncommutative quantum field theories
Dixon: Ultraviolet behavior of quantum (super)gravity through four loops
Elvang: Symmetry constraints on the UV behavior of N=8 supergravity
Freidel: The principle of relative locality
Giulini: Very basic issues concerning quantum mechanics and gravitation
Hollands: Quantum field theory correlators on manifolds at very large and very short distances
Hoppe: Fundamental Structures of M-brane Theory
Jacobson: How general is the generalized second law?
Lechner: Covariant and local deformations of quantum field theories
Lewandowski: Canonical LQG: soluble models and other advances
Litim: Renormalisation group and the Planck scale
Loll: Nonperturbative highlights on quantum gravity from CDT
Longo: Boundary Quantum Field Theory and Conformal Field Theory
Morton: Extended Field Theories and Higher Gauge Theories
Mukhanov: Massive Gravity
Nicolai: Infinite-dimensional symmetries and the Wheeler-DeWitt equation
Oriti: Group field theory: a brief survey of recent developments
Reiterer: A class of gauges for the Einstein equations
Reuter: Einstein-Cartan Theory and Asymptotic Safety
Rovelli: Loop quantum gravity: the covariant dynamics
Shaposhnikov: Scale-invariant alternatives to general relativity
Speziale: Spin networks as twisted geometries
Steinacker: Matrix models, noncommutative gauge theory and emergent geometry
Wise: 2-Group Representations and State Sum Models
Wulkenhaar: Ward identities in matrix models arising from noncommutative geometry

http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011-S (the link to the Uppsala participants list has been fixed.)

 

[atyy]

Given that Witten founded the "gravity is topological" movement which lies behind so much of loops, couldn't strings be seen as the more diverse conference?

 

[marcus]

Hi Atyy,

Wouldn't you agree that mere diversity is of itself not especially desirable. I think the organizers were aiming at an intelligent mix of people who are doing creative work (of different sorts) right now, in the present---and whose work and ideas could on the whole be potentially of use to the others. Like planning a lively party introducing new people to each other.

When I first saw the list of speakers, I didn't realize how well it was going to turn out. I only began to reaiize how well the mix was thought out when I saw the titles. And even then in many cases I had to look at the slides PDFs before I saw how some of the pieces fit together.

We don't know the final verdict. It is an experiment getting active people from these several communities together and we have to sense how they feel about it afterwards. Did they like it? Did they find each others' talks interesting? Will some collaborate or trade ideas more? Will there be further conferences with a thoughtfully constructed mix like this----I don't mean just an omnibus jumble---more interesting than that, more selective.

Maybe the experiment will fail! Maybe they will all go back to their separate specialized conference formats. We'll see.

But right now I see so many signs that the Zurich conference is working that I am feeling very hopeful and good about it.

I'm still wondering what Nicolai's talk will be about. Do you have a guess? I could not find any recent paper of his about "infinite dimensional symmetry", the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, or the FRW model of cosmology.

I have to get to bed, nearly midnight. Hope we can talk more in the morning.

 

[Fra]

Fra! take a look at Chamseddine's slides PDF. Gives some help understanding of how the Standard Model arises from Noncommutative Geometry.

I've had a little hard to adapt to the NCG way of thinking. It is interesting, and the concept of non-commutative coordinates is exactly what I EXPECT to get out of the process where spacetime and generally dimensionality is emergent. BUT, I the continuum context is still a big fog, it isn't helping me.

I personally see an interesting possible connection to real discrete models such as may causal set programs, continuum limits may be emergent for complex systems where the coordinates to not commute. But it's the logic of this I want to start with. If you consider the coordiates in each dimension as beeing indexed by more and more high density counters, defined from histories of other counter states. There is an order in which dimensions emerge, one by one, and it seems obvious that the information flow in this structures suggests that actual coordiate information is related, and not exactl commuting.

But it seems to me that this is taken as a starting point of NCG? This I have a problem with. Isn't it quite interesting to understand the origin of the non-commutativity?

Unless I miss something there is no answer to this, is there?

I admit that I at least my understanding is not satisfied with the apparent strategy of the NCG. It seems to be more an elaboration of possible mathematical structures, and see how it may or many not apply to physics. It now seems to have technical fits. But I don't at the moment see where the predictive value enters, unless the reason for WHY coordinates does not commute. Shouldn't we understand HOW they don't commute, in order to predict something, rather using a desired prediction to infer how they "must discommute".

So, I think NCG is interesting, and the connection ot SM is interesting, but I find not coherent reasoning in their method that I can get my brain to accept.

It seems like the causal set level or something in a similar spirit is where whatever LEADS to NCG should start?

/Fredrik

 

[marcus]

Last time I updated the list of available slides PDFs there were 28, let's see how many new ones have been posted. I think these 4:

Steinacker: Matrix models, noncommutative gauge theory and emergent geometry
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:steinacker.pdf

Wulkenhaar: Ward identities in matrix models arising from noncommutative geometry
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurich11-raimar.pdf

Litim: Renormalisation group and the Planck scale
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:litimethz.pdf

Craps: Cosmological singularities in string theory
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:craps.pdf

The talks we still don't have PDF for are these 6:

Bodendorfer: Towards Loop Quantum Supergravity
Hoppe: Fundamental Structures of M-brane Theory
Longo: Boundary Quantum Field Theory and Conformal Field Theory
Mukhanov: Massive Gravity
Nicolai: Infinite-dimensional symmetries and the Wheeler-DeWitt equation
Wise: 2-Group Representations and State Sum Modelshttp://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011-S (the link to the Uppsala participants list has been fixed.)

 

[atyy]

Hi Atyy,

Wouldn't you agree that mere diversity is of itself not especially desirable. I think the organizers were aiming at an intelligent mix of people who are doing creative work (of different sorts) right now, in the present---and whose work and ideas could on the whole be potentially of use to the others. Like planning a lively party introducing new people to each other.

When I first saw the list of speakers, I didn't realize how well it was going to turn out. I only began to reaiize how well the mix was thought out when I saw the titles. And even then in many cases I had to look at the slides PDFs before I saw how some of the pieces fit together.

We don't know the final verdict. It is an experiment getting active people from these several communities together and we have to sense how they feel about it afterwards. Did they like it? Did they find each others' talks interesting? Will some collaborate or trade ideas more? Will there be further conferences with a thoughtfully constructed mix like this----I don't mean just an omnibus jumble---more interesting than that, more selective.

Maybe the experiment will fail! Maybe they will all go back to their separate specialized conference formats. We'll see.

But right now I see so many signs that the Zurich conference is working that I am feeling very hopeful and good about it.

I'm still wondering what Nicolai's talk will be about. Do you have a guess? I could not find any recent paper of his about "infinite dimensional symmetry", the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, or the FRW model of cosmology.

I have to get to bed, nearly midnight. Hope we can talk more in the morning.

But how could any of the top professionals in quantum gravity not already have been aware of most of these developments?

Nicolai was talking about something like http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.0854.

I just noticed that Raman Sundrum is now at the same university as Ted Jacobson, where Michael Levin also is. Strominger has been trying to connect to Jacobson's EFE from thermodynamics for quite a few years now, and the proposal of a generalized second law is http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0203101" . Or consider that Smolin has just had a paper on higher spin gravity, and Simone Giombi is at the Perimeter. I would be very surprised if Freidel didn't know all about BCFW. Same with the non-commutative geometry stuff: Chamseddine has worked in gravity as topology, and supergravity. Steinacker has long explicitly related his stuff to IKKT and to Freidel and Livine's vision of group field theory. Asymptotic Safety builds on tools that Polchinski made major contribution to.

Yes, Zurich certainly had interesting stuff - especially since Baez was there to make up for his cousin's absence (ok, I don't understand any of his professional stuff, but his maths for dummys are among the best fun lectures I've heard) - but to think of it as an agenda setting experiment which would either succeed or fail seems a stretch. Much good stuff in basic science comes by organic growth, without committee design. (I should also add that much good stuff in basic science comes from applied science.) It's always been that way - the top people keep themselves informed - Bach studied the concertos of the "Italian school", and was keenly interested in new developments in the by then old art of organ building, and still tested some of the very early pianofortes. (Well, sometimes they don't - it was very important for Cooley and Tukey to rediscover the FFT!)

 

[marcus]

Atyy, the 2009 Nicolai paper you point to does not say "infinite dimensional symmetries" although it does say WdW equation and talks about minisuperspace modeling of cosmology.
I still don't have a clear idea of what Nicolai's talk is going to be about. How would you classify it---say using the rough categories I mentioned? String, General considerations that apply across the board, or its own sui generis category...? He is one of the organizers and he's giving the concluding talk of the conference---it is bound to have some relevance to how he sees the QG field.

You mention a bunch of private individual cross-overs and interconnections. Nice. To me what they help prove is that the "Quantum Theory and Gravitation" field is ready to have a conference.

A conference serves to define and establish a field of research. It gets the crossovers and interconnections out in the open.

It also breeds collaboration---people meet listen to each other in person and sense each other's drive/ability and see who might be someone they want to co-author with.

You seem to be saying "why have a conference? all this interconnection is already happening!" then why ever have any conferences at all? What social and field-defining functions do conferences perform? Why ever bother to have them?

I say the interconnections you mention are all the more reason to have a combined QG conference. It is an important part of the process that defines a research community.

 

[atyy]

Atyy, the 2009 Nicolai paper you point to does not say "infinite dimensional symmetries" although it does say WdW equation and talks about minisuperspace modeling of cosmology.

It's explained in the first few paragraphs.

 

[marcus]

It's explained in the first few paragraphs.

I see! Thanks, Atyy.

As a reminder of what we've been discussing, as I see it the Zurich QTG (Quantum Theory and Gravitation) conference is aimed at joining several potentially complementary approaches to QG in a coherent research community.
I don't mean that the goal is a single "theory" (some things called "theory" aren't even well-formulated testable theories yet ) but rather a combined community of researchers able on occasion to exchange ideas and engage in collaboration---co-author papers, trade postdocs etc.

So the idea of the Zurich conference is not mere diversity for its own sake. It is a particular (and potentially fertile) mix of people and QG approaches.

Here are posts #2 and #3 of this thread--positions taken which may have helped initiate discussion:

I'd be interested to hear any reasons to explain a contrary view, but off-hand I'd say that QG 11 is obviously a far more interesting conference. The key factor is that it is mixed, so we should look more carefully at the makeup.
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
I think at this point, with a declining enthusiasm for string and the focus of string researchers tending to spread out into less specifically string-unification areas---QG in particular, that if you are organizing a conference you can get more interesting people to talk about more interesting stuff if you make it mixed.

It is just how it is IMHO. Many of the smart people are interested in what is going on in neighboring lines of research, not just string. So we are probably going to see more conferences like QG 11---that is more heterogeneity---in the future.

Of course it would be delightful to hear an argument to the contrary, if anybody can think one.

Well, I'm voting with my feet and going to the Quantum Theory and Gravitation conference in Zurich...

Today (23 June) John Barrett announced that the European Science Foundation has extended the QG-network charter through end 2011.
http://www.maths.nottingham.ac.uk/qg/Meetings.html
The ESF-QG (Quantum Geometry and Quantum Gravity) was originally mandated to run five years: around June 2006 through June 2011. It has been the main engine behind a series of schools, workshops combining various QG approaches, and this conference.

Updated list of Zurich slides PDFs that are available on line--there are 33 sets of slides so far:

Wulkenhaar: Ward identities in matrix models arising from noncommutative geometry
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurich11-raimar.pdf
Steinacker: Matrix models, noncommutative gauge theory and emergent geometry
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:steinacker.pdf
Speziale: Spin networks as twisted geometries
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:speziale.pdf
Shaposhnikov: Scale-invariant alternatives to general relativity
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:shaposhnikov.pdf NEW
Rovelli: Loop quantum gravity: the covariant dynamics
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichrovelli.pdf
Reuter: Einstein-Cartan Theory and Asymptotic Safety
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:reuter.pdf
Reiterer: A class of gauges for the Einstein equations
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:reiterer.pdf
Oriti: Group field theory: a brief survey of recent developments
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:oriti.pdf
Morton: Extended Field Theories and Higher Gauge Theories
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:morton.pdf
Loll: Nonperturbative highlights on quantum gravity from CDT
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:loll.pdf
Litim: Renormalisation group and the Planck scale
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:litimethz.pdf
Lewandowski: Canonical LQG: soluble models and other advances
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:lqgrecentadvanceszurich.pdf
Lechner: Covariant and local deformations of quantum field theories
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:gandalf_lechner_-_zuerich_2011.pdf
Jacobson: How general is the generalized second law?
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:howgeneral-zurich.pdf
Hollands: Quantum field theory correlators on manifolds at very large and very short distances
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurich.hollands.pdf
Giulini: Very basic issues concerning quantum mechanics and gravitation
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:giulini_qg2011.pdf
Freidel: The principle of relative locality
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:freidel.pdf
Elvang: Symmetry constraints on the UV behavior of N=8 supergravity
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:countertermszurich-final.pdf
Dixon: Ultraviolet behavior of quantum (super)gravity through four loops
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ld.ethz.qg.pdf
de Goursac: Renormalizability of noncommutative quantum field theories
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:goursac-zurich2011.pdf
Craps: Cosmological singularities in string theory
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:craps.pdf
Compere: The translation anomaly of asymptotically flat spacetimes
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:compere.pdf
Chamseddine: The Spectral Action
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:chamseddine.pdf
Bossard: Toward the consistency of N=8 supergravity as a quantum field theory
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:n_8consistency.pdf
Bodendorfer: Towards Loop Quantum Supergravity
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:bodendorfer.pdf
Blau: String Theory as a Theory of Quantum Gravity: a Status Report
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichblau.pdf
Beisert: Symmetries and Integrability for Scattering Amplitudes in N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theory
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:beisert.pdf
Barrett: State sum models and the spectral action
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:rg-zurich-talk.pdf
Baez: Higher gauge theory, division algebras and superstrings
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:baez.susy.pdf
Bachas: The problem of localization of gravity
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:bachas.pdf
Ashtekar: Quantum Cosmology and the Very Early Universe
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ashtekar.pdf
Arnlind: Poisson Algebraic Geometry and Matrix Regularizations
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:arnlind.pdf
Ambjorn: CDT, a quantum theory of geometry
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:ambjorn.pdf

Links to the QG11 (Zurich) and Strings 2011 (Uppsala) websites:

http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/doku.php?id=qg11:programme
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/programme_NEW.html
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011-S The talks we still don't have PDF for are these 5:

Hoppe: Fundamental Structures of M-brane Theory
Longo: Boundary Quantum Field Theory and Conformal Field Theory
Mukhanov: Massive Gravity
Nicolai: Infinite-dimensional symmetries and the Wheeler-DeWitt equation
Wise: 2-Group Representations and State Sum Models

 

[marcus]

John Baez and others discussing the Zurich QTG conference at n-Cat Café:
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2011/04/quantum_theory_and_gravitation.html#c038517

Baez suggests also checking Morton's blog later in case he might have something on QTG:
http://theoreticalatlas.wordpress.com/
I didn't see anything. If you see any other blog reports, please post links!

...The talks we still don't have PDF for are these 5:

Hoppe: Fundamental Structures of M-brane Theory
Longo: Boundary Quantum Field Theory and Conformal Field Theory
Mukhanov: Massive Gravity
Nicolai: Infinite-dimensional symmetries and the Wheeler-DeWitt equation
Wise: 2-Group Representations and State Sum Models

It turns out Hoppe gave a blackboard talk (no PDF presumably) but one of the others was posted today. We now have Roberto Longo's slides:

Longo: Boundary Quantum Field Theory and Conformal Field Theory
http://www.conferences.itp.phys.ethz.ch/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=qg11:zurichlongo11.pdf

Part of Longo's presentation is about some joint work he did with Edward Witten. That reminds me to mention that several of the Zurich speakers (e.g. Beisert, Blau, Elvang...) are also among those giving invited talks at Strings 2011 next week in Uppsala.

Regarding the Uppsala conference, anyone with an interest in how things are going with the string program might want to take a look at the list of registered participants to see who is attending.
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011-S
Besides the 30-some people giving talks (who obviously have to attend!), I saw a dozen or so other well-known people, but missed quite a few one might have expected (e.g. Arkani-Hamed, Strominger, Giddings, Neitzke, Silverstein, Gubser, Bousso, Kachru, Kallosh, Randall, Sundrum, Arnlind, Bachas...) Do you get the same impression?
Registration is now closed but will re-open Monday at the door, so more may show up.